Fear of Abandonment - Eating Disorder Video #30

http://www.katimorton.com/
This week's video comes from a question I received on YouTube. The question had to do with how the fear of abandonment feeds as well as how it is related to our EDs. The first thing I want to acknowledge is that many people who have an ED also have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). BPD is a disorder that is usually characterized by instability in interpersonal relationships, difficulty with self-image as well as impulsivity. After reading that you can probably see why many people with ED's also have BPD. What I would like to talk about in this particular video is why we have such a fear of abandonment and how we can deal with this fear in a more constructive way.
There are often two ways that we act out due to our fear of abandonment. We will either emotionally black mail the person we are in a relationship with to force them to stay. Or we will leave them before they can leave us. When we emotionally black mail someone, it is almost like we are threatening them. We will say things like "if you leave I will kill myself," or "I will start cutting again if you leave me," etc. When they come running back to us, or say that they have changed their minds, we have blackmailed them into staying. This can be horrible for any relationship, because we know that they would have left and probably still want to, which can feed our fear even more. The second way we deal is by running from them first. This is usually in romantic relationships, but I have had many clients who have run away from friendships as well. We feel that we would rather know when the leaving will happen and so we push people away and move onto the next relationship. In general, we don't really like being alone so it should be easy for you to notice if you tend to run away.
So what do we do about it? Well, the first thing I would like you to do is to make a list of the people who are important to you. I want you to write down why they are important and whether you fear they will leave you or not. Through this journaling you will be able play out your fears without acting on them. Think of this as a safe place to talk about this. The second thing I would like you to do is to keep in touch with those people in your life that are important to you. I know we tend to isolate and withdraw from them when we actually want their love and support. So reach out, keep talking about it and let me know how it goes. Let's keep working towards a healthy mind and a healthy body.

Kati Morton - MFTI

Hi there, it's Kati and I'm back again for this week's video

Now, I'm just trying to mix up kind of how I do my videos, sometimes I get tired of standing

in the studio with a plain background. Ugh!

So we are mixing it up today. It is actually nicer to sit, to be honest.

I feel more comfortable.

But, today's video comes from some requests I've gotten. I believe this came from youtube.

But, if not, I'm sorry. But today's topic is fear of abandonment.

Now, I know that many of us struggle with us and I think it would be safe to say that everybody,

at some point in their life, struggles with this because we do become attachted to people in our lives.

Whether it's a parent or a best friend or a boyfriend, girlfriend, what have you

and we get scared that they might leave sometime, right? Because we love them and we care about

them and they are very important to us, and so that fear can sometimes make us do crazy things.

Or it can even freeze us, where we can't even show them how much we care.

Do you kinda know what I'm talking about?

I know that a lot of you struggle with this and the reason being, from the therapeutic mind,

if I'm talking as a therapist for just a minute, is that a lot of people with eating disorders also struggle

with borderline personality disorder.

And I don't know if any of you have heard of those terms, and if you haven't,

don't even worry about it. But, those of you that maybe have been diagnosed with or known

someone that has borderline personality disorder, they have a lot of trouble with this.

Fear of abandonment is kind of what runs their life a lot.

And there are ways that you can recognise that you are struggling with it

the first being that you kind of use your emotions and you're maybe your self harm behaviours

as a way to blackmail someone.

Now, what I mean by that is that almost emotional blackmail, like

"If you don't do what I need from you, I'm going to kill myself, I'm going to overdose, I'm going to cut,

I'm going to purge, I'm going to restrict, I'm going to whatever", right?

We use our behaviours as a way to kind of blackmail them into doing what we want them to do.

So, that's one way that you can kind of notice when you are doing things like that

that you are engaging in this behaviour because of your fear of abandonment

and just recognising that it is actually, that that's actually what you are worried about.

About them leaving. It has nothing to do with this cutting, purging, binging, whatever behaviour.

Also, another way, you can notice if you or someone else is acting out, is leaving relationships all the time

You know those people who jump from relationships a lot?

And I had a client actually who did this all through middle school, high school, through to college,

until we really got to talking about why she wouldn't stay with anybody for more than a couple of months.

And her, she was honest with herself, and said "I'd rather leave them than have them leave me".

Okay. Well that gives us something to work with, right?

So just start noticing things that we do because of our fear that someone is going to leave.

Okay? That is kind of the first step.

There is a lot of information about this topic, but I want to kind of keep it short to this one video.

And like I say, you can always leave comments below, let me know.

And for my next video about this topic, if you feel that there needs to be a next video,

you can let me know what you need more information on, okay?

So we are noticing things that we do, whether we leave people really quickly,

or we kind of emotionally blackmail them into coming to see us and spending time with us or,

if someone threatens maybe to leave us, we threaten with a bigger, "I'm going to cut myself, I'm going to

kill myself, all that stuff." Noticing that. But what do we do?

Okay, so we do that. "Man, I do that all the time. Crap."

Well, things that can be really helpful - spending time talking to our loved ones.

I know that sounds obvious, but just talking. We are not forcing them to do anything.

We are not asking anything from them. We are not abandoning them, leaving them before they

can leave us. We're spending time, we're enjoying the fact that we have people in our lives

that are that important, okay? I know that sounds really simple, but that is usally the first step.

And you can also make a list. Sometimes it helps to make a list of the people that are important to us.

And journal about your feelings and if you have worries about them leaving you, what that

would be like, to think it through. What would cause, why it would be caused?

I know that it sounds silly to actually engage in that, but it can actually be helpful

because we are playing it out without it actually happening and it gives us the ability to

slow down, look at the situation and realise 'that person is there. They are there for the long haul.

They care about us because of this, this and this'.

And it can not only help us feel a little bit more secure, but it can also help build our self-esteem.

So those are the first couple of ways that we can kind of counter-act our acting out because of our

fear of abandonment. Is that clear?

And another thing that we can do, just another quick tip, when you are worried that somebody is going

to leave, or you are contemplating in that moment of time when you are going to call and you are going

to blackmail, you're going to dump them, you are going to cut that friend out of your life, or whatever.

Stop for a second and I want you to start journalling, I want you to write. I know that you are like

"Kati, shut the heck up about that journal, I hate that journal".

But I want you to write down what triggered it. What was it?

Cause just like our eating disorders and our urges to binge and purge or whatever,

there are triggers to this. It could be, they said that they'd meet up and they let you down. They

didn't show up on time. Maybe they made a time to get together with you and then they cancelled.

There are different things that will trigger this in us, and we will respond, either fight or flight, right?

We either fight to get them to stay or we run away.

We need to know what those triggers are so that we can work on them.

We have to know what we're working on. It's the same as your eating disorder.

If we don't know what's even causing it, what emotions are the most anxiety-provoking

and make the urges come full-bore, how are we going to get better, right?

So what we're going to do, we are going to recognise the ways we counter-act our fear of

abandonment, we are going to write about our triggers and we are going to remain in contact

with people. We are going to call people who we care about. We are going to engage in conversation,

help build that bond so that we feel a little bit more secure, okay?

So I hope that's really clear. As I always say, leave your comments below.

Don't forget to subscribe to my channel.

I would love to get the feedback and I love hearing from all of you and all of your ideas for

video topics and things that are interesting to you. I love getting that information.

It's so helpful. And just think, by you giving me an idea for a topic, you are helping other people too.

It's kind of a cool community that we are creating.

And don't forget to check out my website, katimorton.com.

for more information. I posted a workbook on there recently and you can download it for free.

So check that out and let me know what you think.

And just keep coming back as we work, one step at a time, towards a healthy mind and a healthy body.